Under Innovation Policy, Ministry Of Railways to Invest up to INR 1.5 Cr in Indian Startups
- ByStartupStory | April 23, 2022
Under the Innovation Policy initiative, the Ministry of Railways (MoR) will be investing up to INR 1.5 Cr in Indian startups. Startups that can create low-cost products and solutions for the Indian Railways network will be selected by the ministry.
To address quality, reliability and maintainability-related issues of the Indian Railways has been aimed by the ministry, with this move. In order to improve operational efficiency and safety of the Indian Railways, it further wants to leverage innovative technologies that are developed by Indian startups.
The ministry will be investing in the initial stages, proof of concept and seed investment stages as well, in order to address financial constraint of the shortlisted startups.
The funding scheme will be between Indian Railways and startup or innovator, on a cost sharing basis in equal proportion that is 50:50. About INR1.5 Cr is the maximum investment that can be received by the startups and innovators.
Under the Companies Act 1956/2013, Indian startups need to be incorporated, in order to become eligible for the Innovation Policy, primarily a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) as defined in the MSME Act, 2006. Besides this it can also be applied by individual innovators and research and development (R&D) institutions.
The Efficiency & Research Directorate of Railway Board will head the policy.
An innovator or startup will have an exclusive ownership of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) created in the project, under the policy. However, only after obtaining prior approval from the Railway Board, it can be extended to include any associates as joint owners.
In order to use the IP (Intellectual Property) for internal consumption or manufacture, Indian Railways will also retain Government Purpose Rights (GPRs) that will be exclusive, transferable, irrevocable license.
Indian Railways have been showing interest in technology and Indian startup ecosystem, over the years. In the past, Indian Railways implemented technology so as to upscale operations as well as its online platform.
Indian Railways’ broadband services arm, RailTel Corporation, had partnered with IIT-Roorkee in 2018 in order to develop drones to automate rail track monitoring. The move was a part of Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE) initiative that was launched by telecom industry and Indian Railways.
To revamp the IRCTC website, Indian Railways decided to use artificial intelligence and satellite technology in July 2018. With this, the IRCTC portal intended to be simplified and personalised via AI in order to offer additional facilities including hotel and meal bookings.
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